The Cognitive Precursors of Early Developing Essentialist Beliefs

Essentialist beliefs about categories (e.g., intuitions that categories like “girl” or “tiger” reflect real natural structure in the world) emerge early in development across diverse cultural contexts, but the processes by which they develop have rarely been examined. We tested if the basic conceptual and explanatory biases that children rely on to build intuitive theories of the world contribute to the emergence of essentialism across early childhood. Consistent with this possibility, children who deferred to experts regarding category labels, endorsed single and intrinsic causes for object functions, and generated over-hypotheses about structure based on limited evidence developed more essentialist beliefs across childhood (with some variation across domains of thought). Together, these data reveal that the development of essentialist beliefs is shaped by basic conceptual biases that underlie how children construct intuitive theories about the world.